'Failure to nurture the existing client base represents a significant missed opportunity': Toni Robinson-Bowring, Twenty7tec

FR: Where do you think the biggest gaps remain in the digital adviser-client relationship and how can technology help?

As we all know, the advice process still involves plenty of back and forth. Clients need to provide information and documents, answer questions and keep track of what is happening, often across several different channels.

That can create unnecessary work for both sides. Research from the Open Property Data Association found that 62.3% of homebuyers had been asked to provide the same information or documents more than once, while 40.6% said communication between different parties was the hardest part of homebuying.

This data suggests there’s an opportunity to make that process much simpler, but importantly, that does not mean diminishing the value attached to the advice process.

In a recent podcast with our CEO James Tucker, The Wealthy Advisers Club Founder Terry Blackburn stated that the majority of brokers, which he estimated as over 50%, do not contact their existing clients after the initial mortgage or protection completion until shortly before a remortgage or product expiry date. Terry and James both emphasised that this failure to nurture the existing client base represents a significant missed opportunity, as those clients are often ignored until it is time for their next transaction, despite the potential for building lifetime value and offering additional services.

Historically, adviser technology has been built around helping the firm complete a transaction, with the client-facing experience sitting around the edges. We are now operating in a time where clients should be able to provide information once, understand what is required of them and interact with their adviser through a consistent digital experience, with that information then flowing through the advice process. The adviser remains responsible for the advice, but the technology should remove more of the administrative burden involved in getting to that point.

FR: How has that thinking shaped the development of Steppl?

We wanted to look beyond the traditional idea of a client portal as somewhere people simply upload documents or complete a fact find.

Steppl gives the client one secure place to interact with their adviser. Firms can configure their own fact finds, stages and tasks, with services such as digital identity checks, credit information and document scanning available where required.

It also connects with our wider technology like ADVICE. This is vital because adding another digital service has limited value if it simply creates another place where information sits. The aim is for information provided by the client to support the wider advice process.

FR: Why should advice firms be thinking beyond the initial transaction?

There is a clear commercial reason. Attracting new clients can be expensive and time-consuming, so firms that invest heavily in winning business but then lose contact with those customers are missing out.

There’s also a broader point about the nature of advice. A client's financial needs do not begin and end with a mortgage completion or an investment recommendation. Circumstances change, products mature, new needs arise and the challenge is staying relevant during the periods between those events.

Digital engagement can help firms maintain contact and identify when there is a genuine reason for an adviser to speak to a client again. That moves the relationship away from being centred purely on individual transactions into a more holistic, longer-term approach.

FR: How much are wider consumer expectations influencing financial advice technology?

Significantly. Clients now manage many aspects of their finances digitally and, quite naturally, bring some of those expectations into their relationship with an adviser.

I don't think that means every part of advice needs to become digital. There will always be conversations where clients want reassurance, explanation and professional judgement, especially in the homebuying process as this remains a complex, emotive and serious financial commitment.

However, the basic experience around those conversations needs to keep pace. Providing information, sharing documents securely, checking progress or understanding what needs to happen next should be straightforward.

That means client-facing technology is fast becoming central in how a client judges the overall service they receive, rather than something sitting behind the adviser that the customer rarely sees.

FR: AI is receiving a huge amount of attention, where do you think it can genuinely help advisers?

For us, the most useful applications are those that give advisers more time to advise.

Take document processing for example. There’s little benefit in an adviser spending time manually taking information from a document and entering it elsewhere if technology can assist with that task. Within Steppl, AI can support data extraction while still allowing the adviser to check and validate the information before it progresses.

This is an important balance as while AI can assist with collecting, processing and presenting information, professional judgement and the final piece of the advice puzzles should always sit with the adviser.

The real test should be whether the technology helps advisers serve clients more effectively. If it simply adds another system or another task, it has missed the point.

FR: Looking ahead, how do you expect the adviser-client relationship to change?

I think we will see greater emphasis on maintaining relationships between major financial decisions. That could mean giving clients continued access to their information and documents, making it easier to raise a new enquiry or helping advisers identify when a change in circumstances may warrant a conversation.

For mortgages, protection and wealth firms alike, that creates an opportunity to build a relationship based on ongoing advice rather than a series of separate transactions. The firms that make this shift successfully will be those that use technology not simply to improve individual processes, but to create a service that gives clients a clear reason to have more consistent and meaningful conversations their adviser.